


Confusing to the Max.

by TayBartlett9000



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Comedy, Confusion, Corona - Freeform, First Person Narrative, Gen, Humans, Humour, Humourous, Virus, behaviour, observation, quaranteen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24231838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayBartlett9000/pseuds/TayBartlett9000
Summary: Humans are confusing. They are  even more confusing when quaranteen causes them to act strangely. Ford Prefect observes.
Kudos: 3





	Confusing to the Max.

I don’t get it.

I’ve had to rewrite my entire guide entry on human beings and I still don’t get it. In fact, I am even more confused than I had been before. I thought human beings were confusing before this whole lock down quaranteen type thing, but I was wrong. I had only scratched the surface of this odd race and its even odder behaviour when I’d last written for the guide. They’re going to be annoyed with me back at the office. They didn’t like the first entry I’d written. Said that it didn’t make sense, and that it was too long. Unbelieveable. I could have told them that Ford Prefect doesn’t woffle, but it would have done no good. They would have known that that was a lie.

Anyway. Back to the not getting it train of thought.

I’ve been stuck in the house with Arthur Dent for nearly a month now and I had hoped that after a month of being able to observe nothing but human behaviour, I would have become somewhat used to the odd manner in which human beings often behave. But no. Alas, mine is not going to be a easy time of it.

I thought that I had managed to work humans out by now. After all, they are easy to observe. Their attention to rutine is amazing. They like to get up at a certain time, go and do a certain job at a certain place for another certain amount of time. They like to have a break for a certain amount of time and come home at a pre-determined hour each and every day. They don’t half like their rutine, these human things. They are comforted by food and by things taking place on the screens in their living rooms, the televisions as they call them. Funny word. That doesn’t make any sense either, but there we go. Perhaps the human who created the dictionary was as odd as the rest of them. I wouldn’t know. Not only are these humans comforted by the television, they also like to have furry animal type things around them. Some of these animal things live in cages but Arthur’s one romes around the house freely. Sometimes, Arthur lets it into the garden where it runs manically around in a manner that no human would do. They would be afraid that another human would be able to see them. The animals don’t seem to mind. Sensible creatures.

So yes, this rutine obsessed aspect of human behaviour was easy to observe and work out but now things have been shaken up a bit on planet Earth and the humans’ rutines aren’t working for them any more. There is this global virus going on around here and the humans in charge have told the rest of the humans that they need to stay in their homes in order to make the virus go away. Now, that is an odd notion, is it not? I do not understand why keeping billions of humans locked away in their homes will make any difference what so ever. But that is just the start of it. Things are even stranger than that, infinitely stranger.

Arthur has been interesting to observe thus far. He has been worried about everything, even more worried than usual and that is pretty worried. He has been most unwilling to go out and get food. Before this virus thing, he never worried about it. He puts on a mask each time he goes out and he tells me that this is going to help matters. I don’t know whether it’s doing any good or not. The stories that the news people tell everyone on the television and the radio seem to be proving his theories wrong but who am I to judge. Those are the rules and even I know that it is important to obide by them.

When Arthur does get home, his behaviour doesn’t get any less odd. He washes his hands and face all over with meticulous care and attention. This too is supposed to help. But once he returns to the living room, Arthur seems to grow depressed in his mood. He tells me that he can’t wait to get back to reality again, though reality is an odd way of explaining life on this random little rock in space. He says that he misses seeing other people, that he is growing weary of looking at the four walls of his house day after day and that he will go mad should he be forced to endure this for much longer.

Perhaps this is the one aspect to this period of quaranteen that I am finding most difficult to understand. Arthur had never been what one would call a social person. He had a few friends it was true, but I think I am his closest friend and I am here with him. I came to stay with him for the weekend when quaranteen hit, and now what was going to be just a weekend has now turned into a month stuck inside with the tea obsessed human friend of mine. But now, Arthur’s reluctance to take part in social gatherings has turned into a longing for other people.

He told me all the time about how the stress of working five days a week was too much for him but now he tells me that he misses it. What he hated doing has now become something that he longs to do more than anything else. He spends all day sitting in his chair, playing with the television and getting angry about the lack of available programmes. We have watched all sorts of things in our month stuck in isolation together, programmes like star trek, this popular show about space that the humans consider to be accurate, though it is not, and Coronation street. Out of these two shows, I believe that Star Trek is the best even though it is ridiculous. Aliens don’t behave like that. I don’t like Coronation Street. Neither does Arthur, though he has spent many hours watching it with a face like a slapped backside. I think it is the boredom that has resulted in Arthur deciding to watch Coronation Street, and East Enders, another awful show that has even less of a baring on reality than real life on Earth does. Now Arthur has run out of things to watch and has taken to making massive batches of pies and cakes. He never used to bake before, but now it’s one of his favourite past times. He isn’t a very good baker but then neither am I. I only tried it once to please Arthur but he tells me now that he wishes I hadn’t bothered.

I do hope this quaranteen period passes soon. The humans that govern have said that they hope it will be over soon but who can tell? They said that they have never faced anything quite like this before and I believe them. They seem to be finding this isolation thing very hard indeed. I hope it’s lifted soon because life on Earth is annoying enough without being trapped in one building with only one human. I too want to get out and see the outside world again. A planet to explore is better than a house that one is not allowed to leave for more than one hour per day. I do know one thing however. I think perhaps that the editors of the guide are going to like my second entry a great deal better. Who knew that isolation would give one so much to write about.


End file.
